


Piaculum

by Polly_Lynn



Series: Solstice stories [1]
Category: Castle
Genre: Angst, Estrangement, F/M, Family, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Regret, Rituals, Summer Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-20
Updated: 2016-06-20
Packaged: 2018-07-16 06:16:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7255837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He loves this day. He’s telling himself that. Reminding himself with the wind scooping sunlight off the water and carrying it to every corner of the house that it’s hard won. It's a ridiculous amount of time and effort to put into something so untethered from anything else. From belief or the way he's in the habit of thinking about the world, but every year, he loves this day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Piaculum

**Author's Note:**

> Set June 21, 2009, between seasons 1 and 2.

**noun  pi·ac·u·lum \pīˈakyələm\** :  

a sacrificial rite by which communion is reestablished between a god and worshiper :  an expiatory offering

* * *

 

He loves this day. He’s telling himself that. Reminding himself with the wind scooping sunlight off the water and carrying it to every corner of the house that it’s hard won. It's a ridiculous amount of time and effort to put into something so untethered from anything else. From belief or the way he's in the habit of thinking about the world, but every year, he loves this day.

“Do you think we have enough?”

The music of glass breaks his reverie. The music of his daughter’s voice, serious-but-not-serious, as she and his mother bend their heads over the riot of color on this counter and that table. On every flat surface.

“We always have enough,” he chides, a little too heartily. He raises up on his toes to swing open the deep cabinet over the refrigerator that he knows neither of them can reach. His hands curl around squat, lidded canisters. Two, three, six of them, though who knows how they got there. Who knows how it is they’ve mysteriously appeared since he emptied the space last year. “You always worry.”

“It’s important.” She takes the candles from his hands. Loads her arms with them, a pale, happy vision as she weaves in and out of the tall kitchen stools. She stoops to peek into the scatter of boxes waiting on the floor. To look for room. “Full,” she says. She tips her face up. Sunlight falls on it. “Full already. That’s good.”

“Good,” he says, trying to believe it. Missing the mark by enough that his mother turns swiftly toward him.

“Everything all right?” she asks quietly. Gently enough that it annoys him, the way she’s careful.  The way they’re both treating him like the walking wounded.

“Great.” He attacks the cluttered counter. Sleight of hand until there’s space. Neat rows of silver-circle tealights and tapers in their chunky holders waiting their turn. Pillar candles and votives and a low, flat dish of beach sand with the ends of candles from a who-knows-whose birthday cake. “Great,” he says again, and it sounds to his own ear like he means it. “I love this day.”

* * *

 

It takes forever. It’s supposed to, and he’s mostly glad of it. Mostly glad to fetch and carry and  take their good-natured scolding. To be busy, busy, busy while the sun makes its long climb of the sky.  

“This one’s almost out.” His mother eyes the railing. Her hands move quickly, sliding things closer. Spreading them out. She turns to the table behind her and retrieves a mismatched pair. A squat cobalt bowl with a thick rim and a lopsided, free-standing cylinder. She fills in the gaps. “And now it _is_ out.” She moves on with an imperious, off-handed gesture to the empty box she's leaving behind.

“Mine too,” Alexis calls out from the rickety stepladder he wishes she wouldn’t use. From the window sill that his mind insists is still far too high over her head, even though it isn’t. Even though it hasn’t been for years. She lifts her own empty high and lets it fall. She laughs as the wind catches it and takes it tumbling down the hill. “Oh, candle boy!”

She points the way with one finger, an achingly graceful figure, and he has to turn from the sight. Has to give chase, though he would have anyway. He’s glad of the movement. The sun pulsing on his skin and sweat pooling at the small of his back.

“Yes, ma’am. Of course ma’am.” He makes an awkward bow. Clumsy, stuttering steps as the box tumbles end-over-end away from him.

She laughs. His mother laughs from not-so far off, and it lifts the weight that keeps settling on his shoulders. Almost lifts it. He burns the rest off in long strides. He snatches up the box and fights his way against the wind. Back up the hill and through the flung-open doors to the kitchen.

He loads the box up again, and it’s satisfying. The busy work of his hands. The way it takes just enough concentration to fill the spaces—to make the most of the right angles of the box, the candles’ irregular curves—that his mind is an almost-pleasant blank.

_Dad_

_Richard_

Their voices overlap. Harmonizing impatience that makes him smile.

“One second,” he calls over his shoulder. He frowns down at the empty space in the center of the box. An odd artifact of the efficiency of his hands that’s not quite small enough to ignore. He twists at the waist, scanning the thinned out clusters all around him. “Bigger than that,” he mutters as his hand reaches for a votive, then pulls back. “Not that big.”

He pushes aside some overly scented monstrosity his mother must’ve bought. Stops absolutely as his gaze falls on it. Bows under the weight of memory again.

“Dad!”

The slap of steps on the tile galvanizes him. He sweeps it into his hand. Feels the curves of it settling perfectly into his palm. He tucks it into his pocket and arranges his face into what he hopes is a good-enough smile as he turns.

“We’re running out of time.” She pulls up short. Reins herself in. “What’re you doing?”  

 _Not good enough_ , he thinks with a pang of regret. With a vow to do better.

“Nothing.” He grabs the votive after all. He slots it into the too-big center space and tells himself it’s music. The off-key chime of tin and glass shifting too much. “Just making the most of this.” He nods down at the box. Rouses himself and moves past her, back into the unrelenting sun. “Making the most of it.” 

* * *

 

They circle the house, outside first, each armed with their weapon of choice. A silver fireplace lighter with a ridiculously ornate handle. A tiny Godzilla in God-knows-what cheap metal who breathes fire and roars when you press down his tail. A simple box of strike-anywhere matches.

They split up and come together. They call out warnings and race past one another on the grassy slope. On the stairs inside as they rush to throw open windows and lean out, touching flame to wick, over and over and over.

_Did you get . . . ?_

_On the far side. Can you double-check?_

_Hurry. sixteen minutes. Hurry!_

They’re almost late, but that’s traditional. It's part of the charm. Pausing to stare at one another in horror as they think of one last cluster. One last sill or step or ledge they missed. That coiled-up urgency is part of what he loves about this day. What they all love.

It's a _U_ -shaped stretch of stone ledge outside his study this year. Half a dozen tall-glass candles there curving around some neglected bit of green. The three of them burst through the French doors as the last few seconds tick away.

"Dad!"

"I know," he snaps, fumbling at the last one. The very last one, and the spark only just catches as egg timers and alarm clocks and an army of beeping things ring out.

It just catches, and they look up, arms around each other's waists as the sun climbs to its highest point. They look up at the hundreds of tiny lights they've added. A dotted line all the way around the house. They look up and the world blazes bright on the longest day.

* * *

 

The ritual is lazier after the rush of the day. They circle the house, but at long intervals now. They rest on the steps and look out over the water. They find shade and sip sweet tea and fizzing things. They spread blankets and haul chairs here and there. They laugh at the candles hissing and popping in conversation with one another when the breeze kicks up. 

They take turns when a flame gutters out and they're there to witness. One of them tells a secret or a lie or a funny story about the light. What it is. Where it goes and why. Someone has to say something so long as it's within sight. It's the only rule, and they surprise each other.

They laugh and tease. They confess. Sins and hopes and guilty pleasures. Simple and not-so-simple joys and struggles. They drink in the light and let it go again.

He loves the day. He’s glad of it, but it’s wearing, too. This year it is.

He’s distracted when the sun goes down at long last. When there’s one brave, stubborn flame on the verge of flickering out and they're looking to him to tell the last lie. To give it a name and a story or tell the two of them a secret. He’s distracted, and they're looking to him for something splendid.

”That one . . ." His mother steps in with not-quite-unexpected grace. She takes a dramatic pause as time and the wind finally gets the better of the spark glowing gamely at the bottom of the heavy glass. "That one, I lit in gratitude," she says, and it's grand. Formal, with every letter precisely enunciated, but her eyes are bright and the theatrics are just that. "For the home I have this year."

"Gram!"

Alexis launches herself into her grandmother's arms, and he has to swallow hard. He has to let go of the weight gnawing at him, if only for this particular moment. He steps close to loop his arms around the two of them.

"The home we have," he says, grateful and weightless in the moment.  

* * *

 

He tells them to leave the candles. That he’ll take care of them or they’ll still be there tomorrow, but neither of them listens. They follow their separate paths now, making a start at least. Gathering up empty tin trays and smoke-dimmed glass. Saying their goodbyes and their _until-next-years_.

They’re tired when they meet in the kitchen. Quiet and smiling and he sees the signs of a long day in the way they lean into one another. In the heaviness of their steps as they climb the stairs.

He lingers for a while. He weaves through rooms and doorways, checking doors and window latches. He's tired, too, but something keeps him here, neither in nor out. He listens for the wind and the water and tips his face up to feel the last warmth of the sun clinging to the night air.  He closes his eyes and shoulders the weight again. Lets it settle on him as fully as he released it just a little while ago.

He slips his hand into his pocket and draws it out. The burden he’s been carrying all day. Longer than that. Weeks. He holds it flat on his palm and lets the weight draw him where it will. Down the hill. To the edge of the water and along it. Out of sight of the house and every bit of light now extinguished.

  
He lets it draw him to the ground. A hard, flat expanse of stone marking the end of something. The beginning of something else. He draws his knees up and sets it between his feet.A tiny, beautiful elephant, its body lustrous grey with a bright blue and carnelian rug tossed over its back. 

He’d bought it in a hopeful moment. A resurgence of optimism the weekend they’d arrived to open the house for the summer.

 _She can't be angry forever,_ he remembers thinking. _She won't be._

He'd bought it then. A solid reminder of foolish conviction. But that's weeks ago, now. Weeks without a single word, and he's down to gestures. He's down to weight and ritual, untethered from hope or optimism or conviction. Untethered from the way he's in the habit of thinking about the world, but it's right-feeling nonetheless.

He fumbles in another pocket. Comes up with a dented box and a single match, though he'd thought he'd used them all up. He strikes it against the box. He shelters the struggling flame with the curve of his palm. Lowers it with reverence and touches the flame to the wick.

It sputters and catches. Eventually it does. He sits with the little candle, unquiet in every corner of himself. He misses her in such complicated ways that it's like hooks snagging everywhere inside him as he tries to let go.

He thinks about loss. His own and hers, infinitely greater. The empty places inside her that can’t be filled. Won't be, and all he can do is this. All he can do is bear witness to the end of this beautiful little thing. Its hollowed out collapse and bleeding together of colors.

All he can do is this, but there’s an instant of clarity in the tiny, dying light as it smokes and sputters its way through a last brave, moment. Sudden insight, if he'll welcome it.

He does. In the hollowed out collapse and the bleeding together of colors, he sees himself for the sinner he is, not the champion he’d fancied himself. The ally and confidant he could have been.

He sees it, and in the candle's last, brave moment—the last, brave moment of the longest day—he begs forgiveness.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” he says out loud to the quickly fading spark still kissing the wick. To the curl of smoke as it rises. “I’m sorry. I wish I’d listened.” 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Having trouble letting go. Stupid.


End file.
